Depoliticizing the Just Transition? A Discursive Analysis of EU Parliamentary Debates on the Just Transition Mechanism

This article examines the discursive dynamics of depoliticization in the European Union’s ecological transition, focusing on the Just Transition Mechanism (JTM), a key instrument of the European Green Deal. Building on critical scholarship, we start from the observation that EU governance often frames environmental challenges as neutral and technical, obscuring their political nature and narrowing the space for alternatives. To assess how such processes unfold, we conducted a thematic analysis of plenary debates in the European Parliament and official Commission statements concerning the JTM. Using a coding framework centered on conflict, authority, agency, and alternative futures, the analysis shows that parliamentary discourse largely reduces contestation to issues of financial allocation, technical feasibility, and procedural compliance. EU institutions emerge as the main agents and sources of authority, depicted as leading and safeguarding the transition, while regions and local actors appear in adaptive and dependent roles. Although references to social justice and generational responsibility occasionally surface, transformative visions challenging growth-oriented or technocratic paradigms remain absent. Nonetheless, traces of politicization suggest latent openings for contestation, highlighting the need for future research on whether bottom-up actors (unions, municipalities, grassroots movements) can re-politicize the field of transition.